On the Third Sunday in Lent, we heard St Paul remind the Corinthian Christians, “So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” This verse has been reverberating in my head this week, as we keep hearing of fully vaccinated and boosted friends testing positive for Covid. Hospitalizations and deaths are nowhere near what they were even months ago, but we are not out of the woods yet. So, be careful out there, and be patient. We’re going to be in this yo-yo-ey world for a while.

Over the last few weeks, I was blessed to visit my favorite retreat center (a Buddhist dhamma hall in Onalaska, Washington, at the foot of Mount St. Helens) to sit in silence for ten days of meditation. I’ve been known to joke—if asked for a strange fact about myself—that one of my quirks is that I am able to sit eerily still for intimidating amounts of time.